"J Graduated" from March 2018

Today J graduated from the Goodwill job training program. It was exactly 4 years ago, to the day, that SD and I made the decision to move to Texas. We had come through that wickedly dark season of J’s hospitalizations and struggles. We were all shell-shocked and worn out. It was my sweet mother who whispered in a text that “if you guys lived closer, we could help with J all the more”.

I remember SD and I being in our freshly remodeled living room in Nashville and I asked her “what about it—what about moving to Texas to be closer to all the family?” She asked the question right back to me and we both realized we HAD to do it, for J, but also for the other 3 of us.

Over the next couple of days I made the appropriate work calls. God bless Randy Ford and Chris Adamson for saying “Joal, live anywhere you need to to care for your family. We’ll work out the work side of it, no problem.”

It was actually April 1st when I called the Texas manager and longtime friend Mark Wade and told him what was happening. At first he thought it was an April Fool's Day spoof, but a minute later he was ecstatic and said he would make the space needed.

God was on the move for us.
Drummer buddy and handyman-extraordinaire, Charlie Petit, knocked out a decent sized punch list of house-ready-for-market details quickly. God used Rockstar-frontman-turned-realtor-and-friend Ric Florian Florian Seven to sell our house in an astounding 3 days with only like 7 showings, for asking price! And 90 days, just a blur of a short 90 days from the decision, we had sold a house, bought a house and moved with the help of so many friends. The cat came too.

We moved for today.
We moved to see J have today.

At the time, G gave up a lot.
Well, actually so did SD and I...we gave up some things, but we’ve gained SO MUCH.
We’ve gained recurring Grandma hugs like the one in the picture.

We don’t know for sure at this point about the next step in the job process, but we now know he can go to work everyday. He’s nervous, and at times it shows. But so many days in the past year he’s been so proud of his own accomplishments.

Popa Richard Devendorf and Grandma Bonnie Devendorf are such a huge part of J’s care. The regular bi-weekly weekend visits for J to hang at Popa and Grandma’s house have transformed our lives, giving him a different dynamic of care and a much needed rhythm of respite for the other 3 of us (and the cat too).

Today is a marker of a day.
An Old Testament word would be Ebenezer. Today is an Ebenezer, a marker of God’s faithfulness.
We moved for today.